Press Release

Edwynn Houk Gallery is pleased to present a selection of 38 vintage chromogenic photographs by STEPHEN SHORE, from the photographer’s hallmark body of work, Uncommon Places. The series, photographed from 1973-1979, documents what the artist calls, “the built American environment,” consisting of landscapes, interiors, portraits, and the details of everyday life across North America in the 1970s. According to artists Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth, this body of work has been highly influential to many artists of their generation. The exhibition includes a number of images from the republished and unabridged monograph of the same title. The exhibition opens on Tuesday, March 8 and runs through the 16th of April.

Stephen Shore (b. 1947) was just 14 years old when Edward Steichen purchased a group of the photographs for the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Throughout his later teenage years, Shore regularly frequented Andy Warhol’s Factory, gleaning essential aspects of pop and conceptual art that he would incorporate into his own work. In 1971, the artist became the first living photographer to have a one-man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The foundations of his personal style laid thus, Shore began working with large-format cameras. He continued his pioneering efforts with color film and from 1973-1979, made a series of road trips across North America. With an increasingly heightened awareness towards what he deems the grammar of photographs—flatness, frame, time, focus—it was in these six years that Shore created, Uncommon Places: his own take on the American vernacular landscape. Previously defined by the black and white photography of Walker Evans and Robert Frank, Shore’s photographs are imbued with particular cultural resonances. These, combined with his use of color film and formalist mode, Shore's style set a precedent for contemporary artists that both Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky, in particular, graciously acknowledge. Uncommon Places was first published by Aperture in 1982. The book contained 49 plates—all landscape photographs from Shore’s six years on the road. In 2003, Aperture and Shore released Uncommon Places: The Complete Works, a supremely comprehensive body of the innovative series containing over 60 previously unpublished photographs.

A two-time National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and a recipient of the Guggenheim Foundation Grant, Stephen Shore is currently the Susan Weber Soros Professor in the Arts at Bard College in New York. In addition to numerous one person and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe over the past thirty years, Shore’s photographs are in the permanent collections of many museums including the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), the Whitney Museum of American Art (NY), the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), and the Sprengel Museum (Germany).

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In the art world of the 1960s and 1970s, the photograph came to have a multiplicity of functions: it could document a performance (as in the art of Carolee Schneemann), advocate a social message (Danny Lyon), underpin a conceptual practice (Sol LeWitt), or relate a fictional narrative (Eleanor Antin). And today, now that cameras are ubiquitous and cloud-compatible, we often expect photography to serve as a tool for other efforts. But a photograph can still — we forget sometimes — have no function than to be itself.

Paris Photo, the first international fair dedicated to the photographic medium, will present its 21st edition from 9 to 12 November 2017 at the Grand Palais in Paris. A must-see event for collectors, professionals, artists and art lovers, Paris Photo focuses on the diversity and quality of the artists and works presented and proposes an ambitious and demanding public program. More than 180 galleries and publishers in three sectors present a complete panorama of the history of photography, from historical and modern works to contemporary creation, from rare and limited editions to previews of artists' books.

The work of the American photographer Stephen Shore (b. 1947, New York City) has shaped contemporary photography and inspired generations of photographers. He has never stopped exploring the boudaries of photography, and has selected subjects that were not seen as obviously photogenic. He has effortlessly switched back and forth between black and white and colour, and has experimented with a wide variety of cameras and every possible format. This exhibition covers the period 1960-2016 and shows important turning points in his career.